I suppose some of these real, regular artists wouldn't have called me an artist at all; for I only painted miniatures, and it was trade-work at that, copied from photographs and so on. Not that I wasn't jolly good at it, and punctual too (lots of these high-flown artists have simply no idea of punctuality); and the loft was cheap, and suited me very well. But, of course, a sculptor wants a big place on the ground floor; it's slow work, that with blocks of stone and marble that cost you twenty pounds every time you lift them; so Benlian had the studio. His name was on a plate on the door, but I'd never seen him till this time I'm telling you of. I was working that evening at one of the prettiest little things I'd ever done: a girl's head on ivory, that I'd stippled up just like ... oh, you'd never have thought it was done by hand at all. The daylight had gone, but I knew that "Prussian" would be about the colour for the eyes and the bunch of flowers at her breast, and I wanted to finish. I was working at my little table, with a shade over my eyes; and I jumped a bit when somebody knocked at the door--not having heard anybody come up the steps, and not having many visitors anyway. (Letters were always put into the box in the yard door.) When I opened the door, there he stood on the platform; and I gave a bit of a start, having come straight from my ivory, you see. He was one of these very tall, gaunt chaps, that make us little fellows feel even smaller than we are; and I wondered at first where his eyes were, they were set so deep in the dark caves on either side of his nose. Like a skull, his head was; I could fancy his teeth curving round inside his cheeks; and his zygomatics stuck up under his skin like razorbacks (but if you're not one of us artists you'll not understand that). A bit of smoky, greenish sky showed behind him; and then, as his eyes moved in their big pits, one of them caught the light of my lamp and flashed like a well of lustre. He spoke abruptly, in a deep, shaky sort of voice. "I want you to photograph me in the morning," he said. I supposed he'd seen my printing-frames out on the window-sash some time or other. "Come in," I said. "But I'm afraid, if it's a miniature you want, that I'm retained--my firm retains me--you'd have to do it through them. But come in, and I'll show you the kind of thing I do--though you ought to have come in the daylight ..." He came in. He was wearing a long, grey dressing-gown that came right down to his heels and made him look something like a Noah's-ark figure. Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as he glanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt--I know it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my place and-- He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. "I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll be here at ten in the morning."